MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS

by Alex Irvine

  Were the others also assessing their own roles within the larger groups? Surely they must be. Whatever the failings of Xavier and his X-Men, they were keenly conscious of the collective well-being—as they saw it. Magneto considered them naive to the point of stupidity, but one could never accuse them of selfishness. So, too, with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four—and Spider-Man, who seemed randomly added into that complement.

  Odd, Magneto thought. On Earth, I would have fought the notion that my thought processes had anything in common with ordinary Homo sapiens—or even with other mutants who chose Xavier’s banner over mine. Yet here, in the secret strangeness of Battleworld, Magneto had a sense that they had all been shocked into thinking along similar lines.

  He wondered whether they also shared his sense of destiny. The place, its very existence, seemed to tell Magneto that he was there to realize a powerful purpose.

  How to fulfill that destiny—that was the question. He considered, and a plan began to take shape.

  NINE

  THEY all heard the explosion, but Captain America was the first to locate the source. “It was a ship,” he said, looking at the smear of smoke in the sky and the trail falling away from it toward the ground. “Looks like it was shot down.”

  Reed was already stretched as high as he could go while still keeping his balance. He saw the impact site, the base of a brushy hillside that would have seemed Earthlike except for the bluish cast to the vegetation and the silicate flowers blooming at the ends of faceted stems. Scattered wreckage burned and smoked, but Reed couldn’t see any bodies or survivors. “That’s where it fell,” he said, pointing. “Only a few miles away.”

  “Let’s check it out,” Iron Man said.

  They went as a group. Thor soared through the air, pulled along by his hammer, while Spectrum and Human Torch flew under their own power. The Hulk covered the distance in a series of mile-long bounds, carrying the Thing by one arm. Spider-Man swung behind on a line of webbing stuck to the Hulk’s back, like he was a skateboarding kid hanging onto the bumper of a car. He shouted with glee, enjoying the ride, but Ben Grimm didn’t feel the same. “How humiliating,” he griped, clinging to the Hulk with his thick, orange fingers.

  Storm brought along Reed and most of the rest, carrying them with her in a pocket windstorm she created and controlled. Those she could not carry rode on a large, flat stone platform Iron Man held aloft. It was a makeshift arrangement, but it got them there. They were prepared for a fight—but when they landed, there wasn’t anyone to confront. Doctor Doom was crawling free of the wreckage with his cape smoldering, parts of his armor gashed and sparking. “Must speak with Richards,” he muttered. “Only Richards will comprehend…”

  “Doom!” Cyclops exclaimed. He and Captain America were the first to reach him. Reed was close behind—along with Wolverine, Colossus, and Johnny. “How could he have survived that?” Cyclops wondered aloud.

  “Power so great…it humbles us,” Doom raved. “We are bacteria… dust…power so great it humbles us…”

  Reed stood back from his old enemy. Doom had always been mad in some ways, but this was different.

  “Whoa,” Johnny said. “If Doom is talking about being humble, he must be worse off than we thought. Steer clear of him, Cap.”

  “No, he’s hurt. Maybe badly,” Cap said, moving closer to Doom, who seemed barely aware of any of them.

  “Better disarm him first,” Johnny warned. Flames licked from his hands, ready to torch Doom at the first sign of hostility.

  “Let me handle it,” Wolverine said. “I’ll cut him out of his armor. We’ll see how tough he is then.”

  “Back off, both of you,” Cap said. Reed heard Doom call out his name again, and he pushed forward as Cap offered Doom a hand.

  Doom just stared at it. “Doom requires the aid of no man,” he said, and struggled to his feet on his own. “Is that pity I see in your eyes, Captain America?” Then to Reed: “And yours, Richards?”

  This is the old Victor, Reed thought. He imagines a slight, turns it into a full-blown grievance, and lets his anger feed itself until he’s in a rage.

  “Looks like you could use a little pity,” Wolverine said. “Your friends aren’t treating you too well, are they? And we sure as hell don’t want you around. Scram.”

  Reed hesitated, assessing the variables of the situation as Wolverine spoke. In his incoherent state, Doom was unpredictable. Doom noticed and misinterpreted Reed’s hesitation.

  “I was a fool to think such as you might comprehend what only Doom can know!” Doom roared. “And you, imposter in the Iron Man suit!” He jabbed a gauntleted finger at Iron Man. “I had thought that if Richards did not understand, Stark would,” Doom said. “Now, however, my armor’s instruments tell me it is not Tony Stark wearing the Iron Man armor. Biometrics do not lie.”

  Iron Man flipped up the faceplate of his armor; sure enough, it was James Rhodes inside. I should have known, Reed thought. Tony would never have been able to keep himself from bossing everyone around. “James,” Reed said. “Were you planning to tell us?”

  “Was waiting for the right time,” Rhodey said. “I was running some test flights for a new prototype suit. The Beyonder must not have looked too close. He saw the armor and grabbed it just like he grabbed the rest of us.”

  Reed wished he’d known—he would have preferred Tony’s expertise, frankly—but this was hardly the place to argue the point. And Doom was waiting and eager to exploit their weaknesses.

  “This deception proves you and your accomplices are unworthy,” Doom warned. “You will rue this moment! I thought to make you part of a grand endeavor to understand and command the Beyonder’s power—but none of you are deserving of such an idea. Doom will travel this path alone!”

  He blasted the rocks beneath Captain America and Wolverine’s feet and rocketed away. “Man, Logan, where’d you go to charm school?” Johnny joked. “Maybe Doom just wanted to hang out.”

  “Shut up, Matchstick,” Logan growled. “You know better than to trust Doom.”

  Reed had stalled joining the conversation. Now he saw that this might have been a tactical error. Perhaps he should have played along, placated Doom’s ego to obtain information. Doom may have reacted more reasonably if he had considered himself to be speaking with an intellectual equal. Maybe they might even have worked together to solve the Beyonder’s puzzle.

  But Doom never truly wanted partners. He sought a way to justify his own solitary pursuit of power. Doom could tell himself he’d been spurned when in fact he’d gotten exactly what he’d been looking for.

  That was more psychoanalysis than Reed usually engaged in, but something about the situation made it seem apropos. “As long as I’ve known him—and that’s since we were in college—Victor has been a man eternally searching for a grievance that would justify his worst behaviors,” Reed said. “This is no exception. Sometimes I think his fondest desire isn’t actually power, but an excuse to indulge himself at his worst.”

  “Ya sound like a shrink, Stretch,” Ben said.

  “Just thinking out loud, Ben,” Reed mused. “There’s something about this planet—or maybe the Beyonder’s power—that has us all thinking about what we most desire. Isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, maybe so,” Ben said.

  “Better worry about it later,” said Rhodey. He dropped his faceplate and powered up the suit’s repulsors. “I’m scanning multiple incoming bogies. We’re under attack!”

  Reed turned quickly. Sure enough, the rest of the villains had seized the opportunity to attack while the heroes were talking to Victor. They came charging over the nearest rise en masse with the Enchantress in the lead.

  Kang was beside her, already firing. Spectrum flashed into pure light and dodged the beam from Kang’s gun. Behind them came the Wrecking Crew, Molecule Man, Doctor Octopus, and the Lizard. Two of the Wrecking Crew—Bulldozer and Piledriver—piloted a three-legged turret with a mounted cannon. They blazed away recklessly, th
e cannon fire chewing up huge pieces of ground and sending the heroes scattering.

  As he stretched and dodged, Reed regretted their trip to the crash site. It had cost them precious time they could have used to find and exploit whatever resources the Beyonder had left here on—

  Battleworld.

  Yes, Reed thought. That’s precisely where we are. Battleworld. Was it the Beyonder’s voice saying this? He didn’t know. It felt the same as his own thoughts—and that was dangerous.

  But right now, it didn’t matter. The rest of the heroes rallied as Cyclops and Cap called out alerts. Wolverine’s claws snapped out; he dropped into a fighting crouch, waiting for the first target to come within leaping distance.

  “Avengers, assemble!” Cap shouted. He charged to the forefront of the group.

  Avengers? We’re not all Avengers, Steve, Reed thought. But that was going to be part of what Battleworld demanded. They couldn’t cluster in their old groups. They would have to fight as a team if they were going to survive. Reed didn’t believe for a moment that the Beyonder’s proclamation was the final word on what was taking place.

  The villains, however, did seem to believe that. “Remember what the Beyonder said,” Piledriver called from the top of the mobile turret. “Line up the body bags, and we get anything we want!”

  “Who needs an excuse?” Bulldozer said. He manned one of the guns on the turret and blasted away at Thor, who held tight his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, as it soared ahead of the rest of the heroes group. “Let’s just do it!”

  Only Doc Ock seemed to hesitate. “Wait! We must strike all at once!”

  But none of the other villains were listening. The battle was on, and all of them had the Beyonder’s words ringing in their heads.

  TEN

  A SHOT from the turret tripod blew apart the rock outcropping on which the heroes had mustered, catapulting them through the air. Those who could fly regained their balance while aloft; the others crashed down hard onto the broken landscape. Hawkeye was lucky enough to land on his feet with his bow nearby. He grabbed it and nocked an arrow, peering through the cloud of dust for targets.

  Cap dug himself out of the rubble as the turret kept firing. “Hulk, we need two seconds to regroup!”

  One of the blasts caught Hulk. “Unh! These things hit like Thor’s hammer,” he said, staggered for the moment.

  Cyclops was down after taking a direct hit. Lockheed the dragon hovered close by, unleashing his fire on the encroaching villains.

  “Hawkeye, take out that gun!” Cap shouted. The Human Torch streaked overhead. Target acquired, Clint thought, and popped one of the Wrecking Crew with a concussion arrow. He wasn’t sure which one. Who can tell those guys apart?

  Hulk hefted a giant chunk of rock to flatten the turret, but Kang anticipated his move. “Battleworld prevents me from traveling through time, Hulk, or I would have undone your plan already,” he said. “But even so, I wield the technology of the distant future, and you have only stones.” He had a small pistol at the ready, but it packed a big punch. A single shot blew the boulder out of Hulk’s hands. The pieces sent She-Hulk and Spider-Man running for cover. Reed had stretched himself out to protect some of the fallen, including Rogue, who had gone down in the first barrage from the tripod.

  We’re going to need her, Hawkeye thought. Rogue packed a combination of raw strength and power absorption that would come in real handy when dealing with the villains’ superior numbers and willingness to kill.

  Cyclops was struggling back to his feet just as another pile of rocks flew their way. Hawkeye ducked, but a flying stone caught him in the head and momentarily stunned him.

  When he’d gotten his eyes uncrossed, he saw that Thor and Cap had flanked the villains while Iron Man and the Thing had played targets in a perfect killbox below an overhung rock outcropping. “Now, Thor!” Cap yelled as a beam from Kang’s blaster sizzled off his shield.

  Iron Man hauled Ben Grimm out of the way as Thor brought down Mjolnir on the rock formation. The rock exploded and tumbled in an avalanche that covered Kang, Thunderball, the Wrecker, and the Lizard.

  The villains had rushed ahead, looking to overwhelm the Avengers and the rest of the good guys. Dumb move, Clint thought. It was tough to outthink Cap in a battlefield situation. They’d taken some losses early on, but now they were turning the tide.

  The Hulk had gotten close enough to the turret tripod that he could grab one of its legs. Whatever alloy it was made of resisted him for a moment, but he got it in both hands and twisted. The leg tore apart with a squeal, and the tripod toppled to one side. Piledriver and Bulldozer spilled out, and Johnny Storm kept them occupied with his special brand of hotfoot. Cyclops blew apart the fallen tripod with an optic blast.

  “Nice,” Hulk commented. “After I did all the hard work.”

  On the other side of the fallen rocks, Reed had been forced to leave the fallen and fight on his own. She-Hulk ambushed the Enchantress before she could deliver a killing blow to the fallen Rogue. “A green woman?” the Enchantress sneered. “Is there no end to the variety of mortals? Unhand me!” She slapped She-Hulk away with a backhand discharge of arcane energy.

  Clint took a shot at the Enchantress, hoping she’d be distracted enough that her magical senses wouldn’t detect the arrow coming. That didn’t work; she flicked it out of the air while it was still yards away. But in that brief moment, She-Hulk closed in and belted the Enchantress with a haymaker left that sent her crashing hard into the tumbled rocks. “Wow,” Jennifer said. “It’s not too often that I get to really unload on someone who’s solid enough to take it.”

  The Enchantress, Clint noted, didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t move at all.

  The villains were on the run—at least the ones who could still run. Doc Ock led the way, moving on his tentacles with incredible speed. Clint started to line him up, but then Cap called out to hold fire. “We’ve got prisoners already, and we need to consolidate our position,” he said. “Let’s not make the same mistake they did by overextending ourselves.”

  Ah well, Clint thought. He was a little irritated to be stood down like that when he’d just gotten started, but they were a team. Staying a team was how they were going to survive this situation, and that was more important than his hurt feelings over Thor and the Hulk having most of the fun.

  “Storm, do a quick recon and see if there’s defensible shelter anywhere near here,” Cap said. She nodded and took off. Clint retracted his bow, stowed it, and went to help manage the prisoners.

  ORORO MUNROE

  It was so easy to fly on this world.

  Almost as if it had been made with her desires in mind. The air bore her up. The currents of water and magnetism and electricity, all the invisible forces that conspired to create weather—all of them were more intense here.

  She could do anything, if she only wished for it.

  She flew high above the shattered piecework terrain of Battleworld, seeing where one planet’s remains ended and others began. She saw fights among animals that had evolved billions of miles apart. She saw fantastic landscapes that could not have existed on Earth. She saw cities destroyed by the shock of their upheaval, small villages, ruins of long-vanished civilizations accidentally swept up in the creation of this planet.

  That was Battleworld to the senses: the eyes and ears and nose.

  But she flew faster than she ever had, and the weather obeyed her like never before. Everything she had struggled to master on Earth came easily to her here. The vast engines of weather seemed designed for her—the clouds waiting to gather at her command, every molecule of water begging her to make it rain, the bottomless well of electrical energies crackling at her fingertips and sparking from the ends of her hair. On Earth, Ororo could control the weather. On Battleworld, the weather submitted itself to her.

  She understood, then, what the Beyonder truly offered. It would be very hard to resist.

  ELEVEN

  DOOM had decided it would be to his
advantage to allow Kang and the others to believe he was dead. Faking one’s death was a most excellent feint, if applied judiciously. He had tried to make all of them understand that they were playing for much greater stakes than simple wish fulfillment. The Beyonder was a being of trans-dimensional power, power greater than any of them—even, Doom had to admit, himself—understood. Battleworld had provided them a chance to discern the nature of that power.

  And once the nature of a thing was understood, it could be controlled.

  So let the others fight out their petty grudges. Doom would play for the true stakes of this game: the ability to unlock the powers of the Beyonder—and other beings like it, if such there were.

  He found Galactus where the mighty being had fallen in the wake of his expulsion from the Beyonder’s gateway. Was he dead? Could such beings as Galactus die?

  No—he was moving. He did not get his feet under him and stand. He simply rose from horizontal to vertical and set his feet on the ground.

  “Hear me, Galactus!” Doom called up to him. “Hear the words of Victor von Doom!”

  But if Galactus heard, he gave no sign. He ignores me, Doom thought, as if I were a microbe…and yet so is he, compared to the Beyonder.

  Galactus, perhaps, was still playing the Beyonder’s game. Doom refused. He would make his own rules—and the others would play the game of his choice.

  Leaving Galactus to his own foolish ploys, Doom returned to the fortress vacated by his associates when they sallied forth to begin their battle. It was deserted and quiet, until Doom’s presence awakened defense drones that had previously been dormant—activated, perhaps, in the absence of the large group. Doom immediately understood that they were tracking him across the pavilion in front of the fortress entrance. Yes, he thought. Here, too, I will play a game of my choosing.